Give Away : Two Dairy Diary Sets

Halloween pumpkin heads, once again creep behind our curtains to sit on our windowsills grinning manically at neighbours and strangers passing by, while their good friends get roasted in the Kitchen.  
      

 So do I. I mean I am currently getting roasted, baking gloriously under the Albanian sunshine. While I am doing so, I was offered a lovely give-away for two Pebble Soup's readers. Not one but two Dairy Diary Sets normally £8.99 including :

• Dairy Diary with events stickers
• Page markers in five colours
• Sticky notes
• Notepad
• Designer pen
• Pocket Dairy Diary

if Halloween gives you the creepies think idea for Christmas stocking filler!

There are two ways of winning a Dairy Diary set.

method one : leave a comment telling us what you intend to cook for Halloween

method two: Tweet this give-away and leave a comment to let me know that you have done so.

This competition is open to UK and Irish residents only, it will close on the 3rd of November at midnight. 

The lucky winners were picked by the randomiser they are
Janesgrapevine and susiemcd1

In the meantime and before going back to my holidays, I leave you with a recipe from the Dairy Diary set

Pumpkin Gratin 

Serves 4 / Time 50 mins / Calories 334 per portion / fat 24g of which 9.5g is saturated

 Ingredients

Pumpkin 1.8kg (4lb), peeled and de-seeded

Parmesan Cheese 50g (2oz), grated

Fresh breadcrumbs 50g (2oz)

Pecan nuts 50g (2oz), roughly chopped

Chopped Thyme leaves 2 tbsp
Butter 50g (2oz), melted

Method

1 Preheat oven to 200°C /400°F/Gas 6. Cut pumpkin into 2.5cm (1in) thick wedges. Place in a lightly buttered oven-proof dish. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 
2 Mix together Parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, pecans, thyme and seasoning in a bowl.

3 Sprinkle evenly over pumpkin. Then drizzle over melted butter.

4 Bake in oven for 30-40 minutes, until pumpkin is tender and topping is golden. Serve immediately. 
TIP Rather than Parmesan cheese crumble over some strong blue cheese – if you prefer.

If you like the sound of these recipes and want to see more enter the give-away, good luck.

 

Lyons Seafood : Dish of the Day

Lyons Seafood Co, -"never heard of them", never saw their products even though they have been on the market for 30 years. Prawns and speciality seafood suppliers and leading retailer and I have never heard of them. Where have I been for the last 30 years? Twenty Thousand leagues under the sea.

This was going to change this week with the delivery of Lyons brand new range: ready to cook seafood dinners or meal in a carton. And I tell you straight away, this is not something I normally do. 6 minutes to cook a meal for two that does not sound right.

The packaging is very seductive with its 3 little windows which let you peek inside: here is the sauce, in the middle is the main offering and on the side the veggies. Accompagny this with bread, noodles or rice and bang, bang you have a meal.

The instructions are simple, even have little picture to make sure you get it right, not that it is difficult mind you, open, tear, cut, fry, mix, it is that simple. Lyons PR explains that they aim at demystifying cooking with fish as people perceived fish as being too challenging. And with their 6 minutes trick they certainly do that.

The range incorporate a medley of well-known dishes: Malaysian King Prawn Laska, Kerala Seafood Curry, Sweet Thai Chili Prans, Catalan Fish Stew and New England Seafood Chowder.

So is this healthy fast food for two? Yes, you get a whole meal with only 20 grammes of fat and that is if like me you scoff the lot rather than share. I have an excuse he dislikes sea food.

But is it good? again yes....mostly. Malaysian King Prawn Laska was excellent, the sauce was fragrant and creamy, fatty, tasty King prawns, nice baby sweetcorn, ripe cherry tomatoes with crunchy green beans Catalan Fish Stew less so: wine sauce was too thin and there was not enough fish, lots of squids and mussels so I ended up with two meals in my plate yet again.

Would I recommend- strangely enough yes, I am impressed with the quality of the sea-food and it is indeed very simple.

For more information click here. Seafood dinners are retailed at the price of £5.99 with a current offer at £3.99.

Chicken Satay

This month "Flavours of.." is hosted by Hrishi and devoted to Indonesia, a land and peoples which stole a little bit of my heart 20 years ago. Since Indonesia is made of  6 000 populated islands, the cuisine is as varied as varied can be. But it might be fair to say that Satay is the Fish and Chips, the Indonesian Steak - Frites in short the national dish.

Satay can be street-food or sophisticated food. Satay is a snack or a dish. It is grilled/BBQ cubes of chicken, beef, mutton, fish, prawn, crocodile, snack, tofu to name but a few but not all at once, served on a skewer with a sauce.

The sauce is  referred to as Satay. It could be any sauce however with time, Satay has been served mostly with peanut sauce and the word self is used for that very sauce. A perfect peanut sauce has this lovely rich yellow due to the main spice: turmeric. Then it should be not too runny, nor too thick and spicy enough.

Before I leave you with the recipe, I want to add that I took this picture at Malaysia Kitchen Festival and that the blogger event "Flavours of" is the brainchild of Nayna Kanabar of Simply Food.

Now for the up-market recipe as prepared by Awana if you fancy a quick version try that of Auntie beeb

Chicken Satay
Printable recipe click here

makes 12 sticks

needs to marinate min 2hours

Ingredients

1.5kg Chicken (deboned)

1tsp ground cumin

4 cloves of garlic

4 shallots

1tsp coriander

3 tbsp turmeric powder

400g sugar

4 lemongrass stalk

Salt to taste

For the sauce

4 tbsp of groundnut oil

2 shallots

2 cloves of garlic

2 lemongrass stalks

500g roasted peanuts (roughly pounded)

10g dry chillies

900ml water

100g sugar

2 tsp salt

400ml of coconut milk

200 ml of tamarind concentrate

Method

Thinly slice the chicken meat into 1-inch slices and set aside

Blend the shallots, coriander, cumin, garlic and lemongrass. Mix in the sugar, turmeric powder and salt to taste

Marinate the chicken in the mixture for at least tow hours or overnight in the fridge

Soak the skewers

Place the meat on the grill or barbeque, cook thoroughly

for the sauce, blend the shallots garlic, lemongrass and chillies. Heat a little oil and fry the mixture. When it smells nice add sugar, salt, water and the peanuts. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the sauce is thick enough for dipping.